“But not at all!” said Starwick a trifle impatiently. “On the contrary, I think it is the first time in my life that I have not felt like a foreigner. I never felt at home in the Middle-West where I was born; I hated the place from my earliest childhood, I always felt out of place there, and wanted to get away from it. But I felt instantly at home in Paris from the moment I got here:—I am far closer to this life than to any other life I’ve ever known, for the first time in my life I feel thoroughly at home.”
“And you don’t mind being a foreigner?”
“But of course not!” Starwick said curtly. “Besides, I am not a foreigner. You can only be foreign in a place that is foreign to you. This place is not.”
“But, after all, Frank, you are not a Frenchman. You are an American.”
“Not at all,” Starwick answered concisely. “I am an American only by the accident of birth; by spirit, temperament, inclination, I have always been a European.”
“And you mean you could continue to lead this kind of life without ever growing tired of it?”
“What do you mean by’this kind of life’?” said Starwick.
His friend nodded towards the crowded and noisy terrace of the café.
“I mean sitting around at cafés all day long, going to night-clubs—eating, drinking, sitting, —moving on from one place to another—spending your life that way.”
“Do you think it’s such a bad way to spend your life?” said Starwick quietly. He turned, regarding his friend with serious eyes. “Don’t you find it very amusing?”
“Yes, Frank, for a time. But after a while, don’t you think you’d get tired of it?”
“No more tired,” said Starwick, “than I would of going to an office day after day at nine o’clock and coming away at five, doing useless and dreary work that someone else could do as well. On the contrary, this kind of life—” he nodded towards the crowded tables—“seems to me much more interesting and amusing.”
“But how can you feel that you belong to it?” the other said. “I should think that would make a difference to you. It does to me—the feeling that I am a stranger here, that this is not my life, that I know none of these people.”
